Semua Bab The bride i never wanted: Bab 61 - Bab 70

I sat on the floor of the reinforced room with Lily in my arms, trying to keep my breathing steady.Somewhere outside, the final move had already begun.And this time, I was the one in the middle of it.Lily stirred against my chest. “Mama?”“Shh, baby,” I whispered. “We’re okay. Just stay quiet for Mama.”The guard who had led us in stayed by the door, radio pressed to his ear. His face was tense.“East side is compromised,” he said into the radio. “Multiple hostiles. They’re testing the perimeter.”My heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my throat.My phone buzzed again. Same unknown number.I answered with shaking hands.“Time’s almost up, Mrs. Voss,” the calm voice said. “My men are at the outer gate. Open the main door in the next ninety seconds, or we start making louder choices.”I swallowed hard. “If you touch my daughter—”“Then don’t make us,” the voice interrupted. “Walk out alone. Leave the child. Do that, and she stays

The first supervised visit happened three days later.Alexander left in the morning with a tight expression and came back in the afternoon looking drained. I was in the living room with Lily when he walked in and immediately pulled me into a hug.“How was it?” I asked against his chest.“Quiet,” he said. “Noah was happy to see me. Claire stayed in the background like she promised. No games. No extra demands. Just the visit.”I nodded slowly. “And how do you feel?”He was silent for a moment. “Guilty. Relieved. Tired. All of it at once.”We didn’t talk about it much that night. We put Lily to bed, ate dinner, and sat together on the couch in a silence that felt almost peaceful.For the first time in a long while, nothing exploded.No threatening messages.No power outages.No one trying to take me.Just us.The next few days settled into something that almost resembled normal. Alexander worked from home more. I painted again. Lily filled the rooms with noise and laughter. At night, Ale

We sat across from each other in the living room, the afternoon light stretching long across the floor. Lily was still napping. The penthouse felt unusually still, as if even the walls were waiting for us to finish what we had started. Alexander leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Then we face them. Together. No more delaying.” I met his eyes. “Okay. Then we start now.” For a moment neither of us spoke. The drawing of the four stick figures still sat on the coffee table between us, like a quiet accusation. I picked it up again. “He’s three years old, Alexander. He doesn’t understand court agreements or supervised visits or why the woman he calls Daddy’s wife isn’t automatically his second mother. He just drew what he wants. A family that includes all of us.” Alexander’s jaw tightened. “I know. And every time I see him, I feel like I’m failing him by not giving him more. But every time I push for more, I feel like I’m failing you.” “You’re not failing me by caring about hi

Alexander stared at the photo for a long time before he spoke again.“They’re using him,” he repeated, quieter this time, like the words themselves hurt. “They’re using my son as a prop.”I couldn’t look away from the image. Noah’s small body curled on the bed, the way his face turned toward the window—it looked too real to dismiss. “What if he’s actually that upset? What if the boundaries we set are hurting him more than they’re protecting us?”Alexander set the phone down and turned to me fully. “Then we deal with that through the right channels. Not through anonymous photos designed to make us abandon every limit we put in place. This is manipulation, Emma. Someone wants us reactive. Someone wants us guilty enough to open the door without thinking.”I wrapped my arms around myself. “It still works. That’s the worst part. I look at that picture and I feel like a villain.”“You’re not,” he said firmly. “You’re a mother protecting her home and her children. There’s a difference.”He c

Alexander was already on his feet, calling security, calling Marcus, his free hand clenched tight.I stayed on the bed, staring at the photo, understanding with sick clarity that the person behind the messages was no longer content to push guilt.They were escalating.And they wanted us to know that distance—inside the building or inside our decisions—would not protect us forever.“Marcus,” Alexander said into the phone, voice low and lethal. “They took another photo less than an hour ago. Different angle. They’re still on the street or in a neighboring line of sight. I want the entire block locked down and every camera in a three-hundred-meter radius pulled. Now.”He listened for a moment, then added, “I don’t care what it costs. Find them.”When he hung up, he turned to me. The controlled version of him was gone. What remained was raw focus.“We’re leaving the building,” he said. “Not another floor. A different location entirely. Somewhere with no public record connecting it to us.”